


Those We Don't Speak Of

by MollyC



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 05:16:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1970373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyC/pseuds/MollyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you work in law enforcement, you get used to the weird ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those We Don't Speak Of

When you work in law enforcement, you get used to the weird ones--the exsanguinations, the strange animal attacks, the freak accidents and unlikely suicides, the people who just  _die_  for no reason anyone can explain.  
  
It's probably toughest on the CSI-types, the ones who have to decide if they're going to try to explain their impossible evidence in court; the evidence-collectors live and die by their credibility, and there are only so many unknown fluids you can claim to be able to match to a suspect before the juries start looking at you funny.  You have to weigh letting  _this_  guy get away with it against all the other guys who might never be caught because you talked about ectoplasm one too many times and no one believes you any more.  
  
Cops, detectives, have it a little easier.  As long as the weird shit makes it  _harder_ to catch someone, there may be skepticism but a sincere "I don't know how he did it, your honor" goes a long way.  It's not even a lie; hardly anyone knows  _how_  the weird ones do the things they do.  If it turns out your partner keeps a special clip with silver-jacketed bullets, you don't report her no matter how non-regulation such a thing is, and if you're smart you carry a flask that to all appearances only holds water.  And if it sometimes seems unlikely that the FBI (the CDC, the Marshals, Fish and Game) could have gotten someone on the case so quick, well, those agents always seem to have a slightly better grasp of the problem.  
  
The prosecutor's office has the smallest problems.  They take what CSI and the detectives give them, and build a case out of it.  It's hardly that they don't do work, but they don't, as a rule, have to deal directly with the weirdness--they don't take the flack for it when a suspect evaporates from his cell, and if the evidence link is too tenuous they just don't bring the case in the first place.  By the time they have to stake their reps on it, they're pretty sure they can present it so it doesn't  _look_  weird.  Their biggest issue is the suspects who claim to have been possessed, or mind-controlled, and if the evidence still makes 'em guilty that's not such a big deal.  The lawyers still have the problem of knowing someone's guilty and being unable to prove it, but they're sort of a layer removed.  
  
Some people can't deal with it.  They can't deny that the weird shit  _happens_ , but they can, and do, deny that it's weird in a meaningful way.  They're the ones who talk about PCP a lot and lament the number of coyotes coming into the city these days.  They can be good cops, good scientists, good lawyers, but you walk carefully around them anyway because if you start trying to explain how the world works they'll stop trusting you, so a lot of the stories and tricks that make the rounds just pass them by.  And they're the ones who tend to start vendettas, and  _that_ shit can get you killed real quick. You try not to work with those guys, no matter how good they are otherwise.  
  
After a while, you start being grateful when you get to the point in the case where it's obvious it was mundane--just regular people, regular crime.  You learn how to phrase your reports creatively, to work around the stuff that's too hard to explain.  And if the number you're given to check on an outsider's credentials looks familiar, you ignore it and pretend to believe the gruff guy on the other end, because that's how you get the people who know how to deal with the weirdness of the week.  When you work in law enforcement, your job is to save people, and you do what you have to to make sure people are safe.  
  
It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it, right?

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this to my LJ a year or so ago and decided it might as well go up here.


End file.
